Law enforcement in France
Encyclopedia
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
. Three agencies operate at the national level, and at the local level each commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
is able to maintain their own municipal police
Municipal police
.Municipal police are law enforcement agencies that are under the control of local government, including the municipal government, where it is the smallest administrative subdivision. They receive pay from the city budget, and usually have fewer rights than the "state paid" police...
. Paris does not have its own police municipale and that the Police Nationale provides these services directly as a subdivision of France's Ministry of the Interior
Minister of the Interior (France)
The Minister of the Interior in France is one of the most important governmental cabinet positions, responsible for the following:* The general interior security of the country, with respect to criminal acts or natural catastrophes...
. Only certain, designated police officers have the power to conduct criminal investigations, and such investigations are supervised by investigative magistrate
Inquisitorial system
An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense...
s.
Agencies
FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
has three national police forces
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
:
- Police NationaleFrench National PoliceThe National Police , formerly the Sûreté Nationale, is one of two national police forces and the main civil law enforcement agency of France, with primary jurisdiction in cities and large towns. The other main agency is the military Gendarmerie, with primary jurisdiction in smaller towns and rural...
, formerly called the SûretéSûretéSûreté is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force, especially the detective branch thereof.-France:...
, a civilian force; it has primary responsibility for major cities and large urban areas run under the Ministry of the Interior; its strength is roughly 150,000 agents. - Gendarmerie Nationale, a gendarmerieGendarmerieA gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...
; it has primary responsibility for smaller towns and rural areas, as well as all military installations; run by the Ministry of Defence but under operational control, for most purposes, of the Ministry of the InteriorMinister of the Interior (France)The Minister of the Interior in France is one of the most important governmental cabinet positions, responsible for the following:* The general interior security of the country, with respect to criminal acts or natural catastrophes...
); its strength is roughly 100,000 agents. - Direction générale des douanes et droits indirectsDirectorate-general of customs and indirect taxesThe Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes is a French law enforcement agency responsible for levying indirect taxes, preventing smuggling, surveilling borders, and investigating counterfeit money...
, a civilian customsCustomsCustoms is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
service more commonly known as the Douane, under the Minister of Budget, Public Accounting and Civil Servants; its strength is roughly 20,000 agents.
Those three agencies are the only ones legally capable of making full arrests or serving search warrants. A similar diffusion exists, or has existed, in several other countries following the French system.
Other agencies
the municipal policemen can notice all the breaches but cannot investigate. There are also local polices in the rural zones, as for the rural policemen the " rural police " as such does not exist. Note the heterogeneousness of local polices both in means and in equipment.- Rural communes may also form a garde champetreGarde champêtreA garde champêtre is a combination of forest ranger, game warden and police officer in certain rural communes in France. They report to the local mayor. Many of these officers wear green uniforms and many carry firearms. They fall under the general supervision of the Gendarmerie.- External links :*...
which is responsible for limited local patrol and protecting the environment - The Penitentiary Administration (Administration pénitentiaire) operates Équipes régionales d’intervention et de sécurité (SWAT teams)
- In Wallis and FutunaWallis and FutunaWallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands , is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific between Tuvalu to the northwest, Rotuma of Fiji to the west, the main part of Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast,...
, there is a territorial guard as well as royal police.
Police vs Gendarmerie
The existence of two national police forces with similar goals and attributions, but somewhat different zones of activity, has at times created friction or competition between the two. Their merging has sometimes been suggested.Since 1941, the division of the zones of activity between the Police and the Gendarmerie was that cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants were handled by the Police, and the remaining ones by the Gendarmerie; however, with the development of suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
an dwellings, this had increasingly proved inadequate. Furthermore, the shifting of a town from a Police to a Gendarmerie zone was often controversial, because, typically, a gendarmerie unit serves a wide area. A redistribution of authority was thus decided and implemented between 2003 and 2005. Large conurbation
Conurbation
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area...
s will be handled entirely by the Police. Rural and suburban areas, and some smaller cities with populations ranging from 5,000 to 16,000, will be handled by the Gendarmerie.
In addition, the Police and the Gendarmerie have specific zones of authority:
- the Police handle questions about the admittance and continuing stay of foreigners (border police);
- the Gendarmerie handles all matters regarding the military, the police at sea, the security of airports, and the security of certain public buildings (Republican GuardFrench Republican GuardThe Republican Guard is part of the French Gendarmerie. It is responsible for providing security in the Paris area and for providing guards of honor.Its missions include:...
).
In French, the term "police" not only refers to the forces, but also to the general concept of "maintenance of law and order" (policing). There are two types of police in this general sense:
- administrative police (police administrative): uniformed preventative patrols, traffic duties etc., with limited powers of arrest.
- judicial police (police judiciaire): law enforcement and investigation of crime, with full powers of arrest.
Thus, the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
has administrative police power in a town (i.e. they can order the police to enforce the municipal by-laws), and a judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
has police power in their court (i.e. they can have people who disrupt the proceedings expelled from the court room).
Until 1984, the National Police was involved in the prehospital care and casualty transport
Casualty movement
The casualty movement is the procedures used to move a casualty from the initial location to the ambulance....
(Police secours). The prehospital care is now performed by firefighter
Firefighter
Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...
s; however, mountain rescue
Mountain rescue
Mountain rescue refers to search and rescue activities that occur in a mountainous environment, although the term is sometimes also used to apply to search and rescue in other wilderness environments. The difficult and remote nature of the terrain in which mountain rescue often occurs has resulted...
is performed by the Gendarmerie PGHM (Peloton de gendarmerie de haute montagne) and the National Police CRS
Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité
The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité are the riot control forces and general reserve of the French National Police. The CRS were created on 8 December 1944 and the first units were organised by 31 January 1945. The CRS were reorganized in 1948...
(Compagnies républicaines de sécurité; Republican Security Companies).
Some other countries follow this model and have separate police agencies with the same role but different jurisdictions.
Local Police or Gendarmerie precincts may not be capable of conducting complex investigations. For this reason, both the Police and the Gendarmerie maintain regional services dedicated to criminal investigations (police judiciaire); these are known as "regional services of judiciary police" in the Police, "research sections" in the Gendarmerie. In addition, both the Police and the Gendarmerie maintain laboratories dedicated to forensics
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
. Most criminal enquiries are conducted by the Police. Justice may choose either service; sometimes, if the judiciary is disappointed by the results or the methods of one service, it may give the enquiry to the other service.
The National Police also features some central offices with national jurisdiction, charged with specific missions, such as the national anti-terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
division.
Both the Police and the Gendarmerie have SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
teams. The Gendarmerie has the foremost and best-known, the GIGN; the Police has the RAID
Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion
Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion or RAID is, like the GIPN, a Special Operations tactical unit of the National Police with more manpower and equipment...
and the GIPN
GIPN
GIPN is an initialism for Groupes d'Intervention de la Police Nationale or French National Police Intervention Groups. Its motto is "La cohésion fait la force" or "Cohesion brings strength."-History:...
groups. The Gendarmerie also has armored and paratroops squadrons.
Both the Police and the Gendarmerie have riot control
Riot control
Riot control refers to the measures used by police, military, or other security forces to control, disperse, and arrest civilians who are involved in a riot, demonstration, or protest. Law enforcement officers or soldiers have long used non-lethal weapons such as batons and whips to disperse crowds...
forces: the CRS
Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité
The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité are the riot control forces and general reserve of the French National Police. The CRS were created on 8 December 1944 and the first units were organised by 31 January 1945. The CRS were reorganized in 1948...
for the Police, the Gendarmerie Mobile
Mobile Gendarmerie
The Mobile Gendarmerie is a subdivision of the French Gendarmerie. The Mobile Gendarmerie is the inheritor of the traditions of the gendarmerie's historic infantry component. Specific anti-riot units of the Gendarmerie date back to the beginning of the 19th century...
for the Gendarmerie (which are often mistaken for the former). They intervene throughout the country.
One justification for the maintenance of a military force handling matters of civilian police is that the military cannot unionize, contrary to civilian civil servants such as the Police, which may make management easier. The gendarmes found a workaround by forming associations of spouses of gendarmes.
The gendarmes each have a free housing inside their respective gendarmerie stations, which is not the case for the police.
Administrative policing
The police administrative comprises a variety of actions undertaken under the direction and supervision of the executive branch, notably the prefectPrefect
Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....
, police and gendarmerie forces conduct a variety of actions ensuring public order. They include:
- directing road trafficTrafficTraffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...
- channelling street demonstrationsDemonstration (people)A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
- positioning riot controlRiot controlRiot control refers to the measures used by police, military, or other security forces to control, disperse, and arrest civilians who are involved in a riot, demonstration, or protest. Law enforcement officers or soldiers have long used non-lethal weapons such as batons and whips to disperse crowds...
forces (CRSCompagnies Républicaines de SécuritéThe Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité are the riot control forces and general reserve of the French National Police. The CRS were created on 8 December 1944 and the first units were organised by 31 January 1945. The CRS were reorganized in 1948...
or Mobile Gendarmerie)
Judicial policing
The police judiciaire comprises a variety of actions undertaken under the direction and supervision of the judiciaryJudiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
. They include:
- pursuing and arrestArrestAn arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
ing suspectSuspectIn the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a known person suspected of committing a crime.Police and reporters often incorrectly use the word suspect when referring to the...
s - interrogating suspects in some phases of judicial enquiries
- gathering evidence
- serving search warrantSearch warrantA search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....
s
These actions must follow the rules given in the Code of Penal Procedure (Code de procédure pénale), articles 12 to 29.
In order to better fulfill these missions, some sections of the French National Police (police judiciaire) are specialized in criminal enquiries; the Gendarmerie counterpart are the sections de recherche (research sections).
Rights and limitations
The powers of French Police and Gendarmerie forces are constrained by statute law and jurisprudenceJurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
. The rules of procedure depend on the stage of enquiry:
- Crimes committed in flagrante delictoIn flagrante delictoIn flagrante delicto or sometimes simply in flagrante is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence...
, in which a suspect was found committing the crime, or pursued by witnesses, or found in possession of objects from the crime or other probable causeProbable causeIn United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which an officer or agent of the law has the grounds to make an arrest, to conduct a personal or property search, or to obtain a warrant for arrest, etc. when criminal charges are being considered. It is also used to refer to the...
. - Preliminary enquiries — it is unclear whether a crime, or which crime, has been committed, but there exist good reasons to believe this might be the case.
- Judicial information — an investigative magistrate (a judge, external to the police) supervises an enquiry on a case where it is certain, or at least very probable, that a crime has been committed.
In particular, outside of crimes in flagrante delicto, law enforcement forces may not conduct searches or arrests without a specific commission from the investigative magistrate.
Not all law-enforcement officers are capable of making full arrests or conducting searches; these powers are, by law, restricted to those have special legal qualifications (see next section).
Officers and agents of judiciary police
The procedures that police and gendarmerie officers follow when conducting criminal enquiries are set by the Code of Criminal procedureCriminal procedure
Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.-Basic rights:Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the...
(Code de procédure pénale) and applicable jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
. Criminal enquiries are conducted under the supervision of the judiciary (depending on the phase, under the supervision of the public prosecutor or of an investigative judge).
Two important notions are those of "officer of judiciary police" (officier de police judiciaire or OPJ), "agent of judiciary police" (agent de police judiciaire or APJ) and "agent of judiciary police assistant" (APJ adjoint).
- MayorMayorIn many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
s and deputy mayors. This disposition is rarely used. - In the National Police, these are OPJs:
- the commissionners and above ranks;
- the titular members of the corps de commandement nominally listed in a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of the Interior;
- members of the Corps d'encadrement et d'application who have completed 3 years of service, are affected in some specific services, and are nominally listed in a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of the Interior.
- In the National Gendarmerie, these are OPJs:
- commissioned officers
- non-commissioned officers having completed 3 years of service, nominally designated by a joint decision by the Ministers of Justice and of Defense.
These ministerial nomination decisions may only be taken after the approval of a specific commission. The current rules also warrant the completion of an examination pertaining to legal matters.
Most other members of the National Police and Gendarmerie are APJs. The remaining members of the National Police, as well as members of municipal police forces, are APJ assistants.
Only OPJs may perform full arrests or serve search warrants; APJs may only assist them in these talks. In case a suspect has been apprehended by an APJ, he/she must be brought before an OPJ for a full arrest. According to the law, any citizen can apprehend the author of a crime or of an offence that can be punished by a prison sentence (citizen's arrest
Citizen's arrest
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.Despite the...
), and lead him/her to an OPJ (this includes APJ, APJ assistants). However, this is problematic in case of a "simple" citizen due to the estimation of what can be punished by a prison sentence or not, and due to possible abuse (abuses are a restriction of the individual freedom and can be sued for illegal confinement).
In all cases, the prerogatives of an OPJ may only be exercised if they are affected to a position where these are needed, and by nominal decision of the general prosecutor of their area. These prerogatives are temporarily suspended when they engage, in an organized force, in an operation of public order (i.e. riot control
Riot control
Riot control refers to the measures used by police, military, or other security forces to control, disperse, and arrest civilians who are involved in a riot, demonstration, or protest. Law enforcement officers or soldiers have long used non-lethal weapons such as batons and whips to disperse crowds...
).
The quality of officer of judiciary police may be withdrawn by the Judiciary if the officer has behaved in an inappropriate fashion. The general prosecutor grades OPJs, and these grades are taken into account for possible promotions.